The present invention relates generally to online marketing and more specifically to online marketing platforms that facilitate consumer interaction and response through viral content creation and sharing.
Marketing via television and radio has traditionally involved purchasing blocks of advertising time during a program, sponsoring a program or arranging for product placement during a program. The cost of each of these options is often determined by the size of the program's audience.
The Internet has provided a new distribution channel on which consumers are spending increasing amounts of time. An approach similar to that used with television and radio was initially used when structuring marketing arrangements involving the Internet. Many early Internet marketing campaigns involved payment for advertisements on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) basis, which is effectively basing payment on the size of the audience for a particular web page.
The Internet, unlike television and radio, enables the direct measurement of responses to advertisements placed on web pages. Therefore, marketing arrangements involving the Internet have grown to include in addition to CPM, the more quantifiable cost-per-click (CPC) basis. Under a CPC model, advertisers measure the number of visitors to a web site that view an advertisement or key word and click through the advertisement or key word to a web site designated by the advertiser.
Over time, the cost-per-click model has been enhanced and automated by companies such as Google, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif. For example, search engines now provide an advertiser with the opportunity to bid on a CPC basis for search terms that will drive traffic to the advertiser's web site. In addition, web site owners now have the option of including contextually relevant advertising on their web sites for a percentage of CPC revenue derived when visitors to the web site click through an advertisement.